[WKUHilltopper]

I remember reading years ago somewhere in some obscure history book, that Kentucky, back during the civil war—around 1862 or so—not only experiencing pretty big battles and chaos, but to add to the misery, at least one killing frost during during the spring and summer growing months. Making produce difficult to harvest. Much less having any production at all.

Wonder if this related to a similar sun cycle (assuming this book was correct)?

[ClearCase_guy]

Fortunately, the solution for Global Cooling happens to be exactly the same as the solution for Global Warming — more communism!! [/s]

[jimtorr]

The world was beginning to come out of the Maunder Minimum, and the Little Ice Age, during the Civil War period. I think the coldest years were the 1840 - 1855 period.

[Myrddin]

Early May 2017. The fruit trees were in full bloom. Plums. Apples. Peaches. May 18th...+24F...killing frost. No fruit at all. The prior year had been exceptionally productive with apples, plums and grapes.

[Iron Munro]

Houston, We Have A Problem.....

[21twelve]

http://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Educational/2/3/6

Above is a link to a graph with the number of sunspots. 1862 seemed to be about normal. The year 1867 was low sunspots. I think one needs to look at the overall trends though over 5 to 10 years - not just a single year’s number.

I’m not sure if the results are “equalized” across the years to take into account the better optics used in modern times. Although to see sunspots, whatever the astronomers had in 1860 was probably still good enough to see all of the sunspots.

[greeneyes]

Dalton Minimum was 1790-1830 so 1862 would have been relative warming, but as the graphs show, it’s not a straight line.